Pastor Mike's Blog

Great to see fruit.

Mike Kennon — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 13:14:28 +0000

This morning at our men’s breakfast we began to discuss the events of the week. While some were discussing our desire for Winter Haven churches to share the gospel and to show fruit, we had a great testimony from a gentleman who has been attending Deep Roots since we began. It was encouraging because he shared that he was talking to a man on the street asking for some money to get a room for the night. The guy from our church, we will call him Frank, was amazed at himself for being led to tell this other gentleman that he needed Jesus. The other man discussed that he would not be acceptable in the eyes of Jesus because of his past. Frank though was not going to have it. Frank gave the man what he had to help the individual but on the condition that the man seek out a church and to give Jesus a chance.

It is stories like this that help to keep the church motivated to do what it does. This is what it is all about. People taking the time to really go out of their comfort zones to share the Gospel. If you had asked Frank if he would have really thought he would be able to share his faith with a stranger a few years ago, he would have stated that it would have been a real stretch for him.

I would like to encourage Frank and all of the rest of those in our community to continue to step out and to discuss the name of Christ to all of the people that you encounter each day. I know that it would please Jesus more than us just attending a comfortable church service on Sundays. Remember that we are not called to go to church, but rather to be the church.

Peace,

Mike

Priesthood of all Believing Fathers

Mike Kennon — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 13:11:12 +0000

One of the biggest issues in the church in North America today is our deniablity desire. With the Gospel and with the status that we are afforded by our position in Christ comes a great responsibility. Especially as men we have a grave responsibility to always be leading.

I was encouraged especially today by a young man in his twenties that was working in the Dunkin Donuts store this morning. I have been having short conversations about church with him while he gets our order prepared for our services. He stated his desire last week to attend church, and I was happy to extend an invitation to him to attend our church plant here in Winter Haven, Deep Roots Fellowship. This week as I came in, I mentioned that I probably wouldn’t see him today. He mentioned that he was the only man working in the home and that he had to take care of his family. While I am disappointed that we won’t see his family in church today, I completely understand his need to lead his family.

We need to not only be leaders in our family but also in our community and in the church. I am not suggesting that we go marching up to our Pastors and to throw our weight around with some issue that we want to address, but if you see sin in your community or congregation you need to be proactive about it. If you know things in your church are not being handled in a biblical way then you have a responsibility to defend in a biblical way the church. God will hold all believers in judgement for the times that we don’t stand up for the truth. How many of us are allowing sin: sexual, financial, and other forms to continue or not to be handled in biblical ways in our churches? Church is supposed to be a sanctuary where people can come to discover God without fear of the evils of the world. We are judged by our community to be hypocrites because of our lack of leadership in the church.

My prayer for you is that all men will become the leaders that God is calling them to be in their families, community, and churches. May God grant you the courage to be bold for you.

Holy Thursday

Mike Kennon — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 23:28:39 +0000

This night nearly two thousand years ago, Jesus prepared for his last moments here on Earth. He had done all that He could to pour himself into the twelve that he had selected. Regrettably, one of them would hand him over to those who sought to destroy Him, and the others would scatter when things would get dangerous. On this night, Jesus shared a meal with His followers as a symbol of the New Covenant that was to be established between God and men. He sweat literal blood in a garden while seeking in prayer the strength to face the next few hours that remained. And before the night was over he would voluntarily hand himself over to a court of men who were unworthy of conducting their illegal trial.

He did all of this because of Love. Love for you. Even if you feel you aren’t worthy of anyone’s love, even if you feel that no one can love you because of your past, He did.
He lived a perfect live for you that He gave up voluntarily because of the love He has for you. So, this evening, know that you are loved. Loved by the only one who can make your life everything that you could imagine and so much more.

Passion Week – Monday

Mike Kennon — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 12:28:47 +0000

Nearly two thousand years ago, the people of Jerusalem were going through their typical Monday routine. Many of them were wondering if the man whom they had cheered into the city the day before with palm leaves and shouts of “Hosanna!” would really be the one they had hoped would come. They were hoping that today would be the day that He took over. Yet, they also were making preparations for the Passover. They were spending time cleaning all of the house making sure that the tiniest bit of yeast was removed from the house. The yeast was a representation of their sin and they were required to cleanse their homes of it. Also, a lamb was selected to be the sacrifice for the family. Children were taking care of it and giving their families’ lamb names. In their hearts, they were not looking forward to having to slay the lamb because of their own sin. It made them consider the cost of their trespasses over the year.

Preview Service – December 6, 2009

Mike Kennon — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 02:00:35 +0000

Just a reminder to all of you that Deep Roots is having its third of four preview services. In each preview service we are taking a look each of our core values: Community, Service, Relationships, and Growth. This service will be dedicated to the topic of community. This is an area where the church has really messed up. Plan on being there at 10:00 am on Sunday the 6th of December. We meet at Polk State College in the Library Resources Building (WLR 106).

Thanksgiving

Mike Kennon — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:57:20 +0000

This past Thursday Deep Roots Fellowship participated in the feeding of the homeless in our city. We were able to feed approximately 100 homeless individuals from all walks of life from our city. They received a hot meal and were treated like real people. It was a tremendous experience for all involved. Not only were we able to help feed them on a traditional holiday a hot meal and share the love of Christ, we also had enough food left over that Street Angels is going to feed about 50 more individuals again Saturday. I am getting ready to head out there to check things out and to give away some sleeping bags other things that can be used during this cold season.

Thanksgiving brought in one of the first cold snaps of the season. The next morning we woke up to a temperature of 41 degrees. I know that we didn’t solve the problem of homelessness that day, but we made a difference because of how Christ was involved in our work. As I saw the interaction among our volunteers and church family with those being served, I saw love transferred. The homeless want to continue to have that love year round. That can happen if we continue to show love in our community.

Each day we need to capture that same spirit and to continue sharing Christ’s love to others in this city, nation, and world. I look forward to experiencing what Christ has in store for us next. I encourage each of you to discover where God wants you to share His love for others and grow closer to Him. This weekend many of the homeless that we fed didn’t continue to have meals. Some shelters and food banks gave their volunteers a much needed holiday.

There are many ways we can share Christ with others. Our church is going to be involved in continuing to help locally. This December we are feeding approximately 5,000 people a meal at The Mission’s “Children of the City” event on December 12th. At this event, parents register to be able to provide their children a small gift and the children receive a gift from Santa. Additionally, we are asking that you reflect on your own giving this year. Restore Christmas to the tradition that it should be. Take a moment to give relationally rather than superficially. Our congregation is going to take some of the money we would normally spend on Christmas gifts and using those funds to support Living Water (www.livingwater.cc). Living Water provides wells around the world so that people can have clean drinking water.

Grow Deeper,

Mike

Dead man walking

Mike Kennon — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:30:27 +0000

In John, chapter 11, Jesus raises his friend Lazarus from the dead. We discussed this in our sermon this past Sunday. There are a couple of things that I wanted to bring to your attention about this passage. One is that when you read through this, even on the worst day ever for the disciples, Mary and Martha, and for Lazarus, Jesus was in total control of the entire situation. The disciples feared getting close to Jerusalem and being killed, Mary and Martha just lost their brother Lazarus, and Lazarus died. (That makes for a bad day.)

Yet, Lazarus really had a worse day, when four days later Jesus called him from the presence of God in Heaven to come back to earth. You see, Lazarus was a believer in Christ and had a relationship with Christ. To him, death was a new beginning. Lazarus for four days enjoyed being with God in intimate relationship and worship. Then, Christ having the power of God, called him back from the dead. Talk about a bad day. One minute you are hanging out with the prophets and patriarchs talking about how silly Joshua must have looked leading the band around Jericho, and then the next minute he was standing in a dark tomb with smelly rags wrapped around his head, hands and feet.

It was all right though. Jesus was there, and when He is around, everything is possible to overcome.

Then there is the part of where Jesus is in control. Jesus used this moment to teach everyone around that He is the man! Not only can he heal the blind and restore the lame, Jesus has control over death. Now this is the real thing. When people begin to come back from the dead, people better start paying attention. How about you? Are you paying attention to Jesus?

Nickels and Noses

Mike Kennon — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:18:43 +0000

It is something that often comes up among pastors when they discuss their church. Nickels and Noses. This is the church term for our discussion about the numbers. Not always the numbers in giving, but usually how many attended the church recently. While there is a lot of information contained in the number that attends a church, it isn’t the main thing. True, I can tell often times by knowing the number of people that attend the church what should be the amount of giving that could be expected from the average giving in the church as a whole. I can also pretty accurately predict the type of ministries and growth issues the church is having by knowing the average weekly attendance of the any church.

The number that really matters though for any church, and especially our new church plant, is not the number that came this week. The main number we want to focus on is how many didn’t experience Christ today. I want to know how many are in our community that we didn’t impact yet. How many are left in our area that don’t have a genuine relationship with Christ.

If you are a Christ follower or church leader. I hope that you are asking what this number is as well. My guess is that in our community, we have about 15,000. We need more churches.

All you need is already there.

Mike Kennon — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:29:03 +0000

In planting a church there are always things that need working on. We have been working on our church website since we started. We now are on our third total makeover for it. It should be coming soon. I spent some time on it this weekend. I spent the day after church, working on figuring out our audio mixer. Before this weekend, my experience was hitting the mute button on a channel and using the slider to adjust volume. Today I learned how to record audio straight to my laptop and how to mix and adjust the audio using a program that I already had installed. I then figured out how to send podcast feeds straight from our new website, which I hope to have finished by the week’s end. All of the things that I did today, I already had all that I needed to get them done. God, had already brought it all together. I just needed to look around and work through it all. It reminds me of what is happening at our church in relationships.

In today’s service we had a great worship experience with a guest band (John Kennedy and family and Carlos Castillo). They brought all of their equipment and got set up. They were new to our church and we were new to them. I had only met John and Carlos through mutual friends. I was kind of nervous at the beginning of the week, expecting the service to go one of two ways. It could have been a train wreck with two different ideas colliding or it could have come together in a way that could only be described as spirit driven. Thankfully, when it happened the entire service was filled with individuals who love Jesus submitting themselves in worship. Nothing is more wonderful than that. It was awesome for me to experience.

Our church experience has been full of ups and downs over the last months. There are times when we have great weeks and see so much progress in what we are trying to do. Then there are other times that we see frustration and feel like we are moving three steps back for every step forward. Yet, when we really step back and look at how we are doing in the area of our relationships with others, we see real progress. This is where God is most concerned and at work. God is bringing these relationships together.

I had a friend of mine who was very involved in our church plant reveal that God was calling himself and his family away to another work a couple of weeks ago. This friend was leading our worship. While I was sad to see our work together coming to a close, I was really happy that he was both hearing God’s call on his life and that he didn’t hesitate to let me know. (Nothing is worse than having someone wrestle with a calling from God and everyone around them is trying to figure out what is going on because nothing is getting accomplished or working.) God was already at work bringing the people together for today while he was calling another person away.

The bottom line is this, if we focus on God and let him lead, then we can know that all that we need will be there at the right time. From small things such as an audio mixer or website to big things such as our relationships, our goal should always be focused on our reliance on Christ. I am thankful for my friend and the relationship we have with our families. We still will always be great friends. I also look forward to how God will use his departure from Deep Roots to build new relationships with those that are involved in doing his work.

Wanna be fed?

Mike Kennon — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 01:12:44 +0000

This past week we looked at the feeding of the five-thousand in chapter 6 of John’s Gospel. In it we see many things. I wanted to remind you of the main points to this message because it is so relevant to what we all are experiencing now.

We all need help. With the state of the economy and all the normal things of life that can cause frustration and anxiety, we are just like the crowd following Jesus, searching for some help.

We need to find and stay close to Jesus. Jesus in that time was the talk of the town because of all that he had done for the sick and lame. We have the same hope that He is able to meet every need.

When we find Him, we may be surprised that those close to Him may not understand. Just like the disciples on that day, those that we know are close to Jesus may not understand how God will show up in a mighty way to meet our need.

We need to bring all that we have to Him. Just like the little boy who brought everything to Jesus to do His work, we too should never hold tightly to our possessions. We need to be willing to give everything up to Him, so He can use it.

We need to remember that there is a tomorrow. While the crowd was satisfied that day and desired to establish Jesus as their king, Jesus was more concerned with the eternal matters. He slipped away leaving the people with needs for the next day. Jesus allows us to go through tough times and suffering sometimes to develop our character and person to reflect Him.

Deep Roots, you all are amazing me about how you continue to grow deeper in Christ and are expanding your reach into the community. I see so much of Him at work in each of you, it makes my job as your pastor so easy.

God Bless you all,

Pastor Mike